Around 40,000 travellers are set to have their holiday plans ruined today as Ryanair staff go on strike – causing 250 flights to be cancelled.
A dispute over pay and conditions between the budget airline and staff in six European countries will see them walk out for 24 hours.
Ryanair initially cancelled 150 flights due to an "unnecessary" strike in Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy.
But on Thursday the airline said pilots in Germany would also be going on strike, with up to 100 flights shelved as a result.
The airline has said that all affected customers have received emails and texts advising them of the cancellations.
Ryanair’s chief operations officer Peter Bellew said the action was "deeply regrettable".
"It is deeply disappointing that some of our customers and our people in Germany tomorrow will have their flights disrupted by an unnecessary strike called at short notice," he said.
The strikes are the latest in a series of walkouts by staff at Europe’s largest low-cost airline.
The cancellations account for around 10 percent of its 2,400 scheduled flights on Friday, the airline said this week.
On September 12 dozens of flights were cancelled in Germany after pilots and flight attendants refused to work for 24 hours.
In August, several days of strikes involving staff in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands saw hundreds of flights cancelled. It was estimated to have affected around 55,000 customers.
Meanwhile, earlier this month Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said strikes by pilots were necessary to keep air fares down.
He insisted industrial disputes with the airline’s staff have caused "minimal disruption" as he pledged not to "roll over".
The Irish airline also says it has made significant progress in recent weeks in negotiations, including reaching collective labour agreements with staff in Ireland, Britain, Italy and Germany.
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"These strikes show that, despite its recent rhetoric, Ryanair has a long way to go before it enjoys sustainable industrial relations," Gabriel Mocho Rodriguez, civil aviation secretary at the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), said in a statement.
"You cannot claim negotiations are going well when workers in six countries on your network decide to take simultaneous
strike action," he added.
You can find out more about your rights to compensation in Mirror Money’s flight delays and cancellations guide .
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